The Nuance
Curiosity Is the Secret to a Happy Life
Engaging with the unfamiliar can keep mind and body fit. So how to pump up one’s levels of curiosity?
Anyone who has spent time around kids knows that their young minds are powered by curiosity. The average child probably asks more questions in 10 minutes than the average adult does in 10 days. Kids are curiosity personified.
But as people age, their reservoirs of curiosity tend to dry up. Studies have found that, on average, a person’s openness to new experiences and new sensations declines steadily with age. At the same time, apathy increases. While plenty of older adults buck these trends, there’s some truth to the cliché of the narrow-minded, novelty-averse fogey who rigidly adheres to his time-worn routines and opinions.
For years, mental health researchers have noted this age-related dip in curiosity. They’ve also noticed that high levels of curiosity often correlate with many different measures of mental health and vigor. One 2018 paper from the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews found evidence that maintaining curiosity in old age is protective against cognitive and physical decline. Compared to the incurious, older adults who score high in curiosity tend to perform better on tests of memory and…
